0:00

Some of our most interesting natural environments can be found in pretty unlikely places. "You want excitement? Come and take a look at this!"

0:17

Like this one-time cow pasture -- now zoned for industrial development -- just outside of Medford.
"Boy, look at the density of ostrocods in here!"

0:26

The surface is strewn with agates -- the reason this part of the Rogue Valley is called the Agate Desert. Though these biologists did not come to look at rocks.
"These bright red ones here are copepods."

0:40

The shallow ponds are nothing more than mud puddles to some people. But the proper name is vernal pools. And Michael Parker, who teaches at Southern Oregon University, thinks these vernal pools are some of the most fascinating ecosystems we have. "This is probably zignema, what people call pond scum."

1:00

Yet because the pools seem so common, and maybe since the creatures in them are so small, these habitats have been largely ignored and unprotected.
"Oh yeah! I feel like the kid with his first trout!"

1:12

But the years of neglect may be ending, because in this pasture alone, the vernal pools are home to two rare plant species and a federally listed threatened animal. "Branchinecta linchi: the common name is the vernal pool fairy shrimp." "I had a great experience once: These two little kids came scrambling down off the trail to see what we were looking at and got in up to their elbows. Mom's on the trail and was so shocked that they were down there with us, she shouted: 'Get out of there; you're going to get frogs and disease!' "

1:43

Vernal pools are seasonal. They fill with winter rain, then come alive with plants and tiny animals in the spring. That's what the word "vernal" refers to. It's late February now. By summer, these will be drying up, eventually disappearing, until the heavy rains return.
For the water to sit like this for months at a time, and not seep into the ground, also requires a certain geology underneath: an impervious layer of rock or soil. Nearby table rock is solid rock, which accounts for the vernal pools that form here on top.

2:23

But back down below, in the Agate Desert landform, a different sort of barrier holds water at the surface.
"If you look down the road cut here, you can actually see a pretty-much continuous line of this durapan. It's just like a solid layer that the pond water can't soak down through, so it sits here on the surface like on a table top."

2:43

Darren Borgais works for the Nature Conservancy, which owns this property. He says the layer of cement-like hardpan underlies all 32 square miles of Agate Desert. Which explains why vernal pools are, or at least were, a defining feature of this whole area.
"This is all part of the Agate Desert landform."

3:03

The terrain is bumpy; it's classified as mounded prairie. And its poor drainage discourages many kinds of agriculture. "Vernal pools are very interesting systems. They're probably the most pristine ecosystem that we have left in the Western states, especially below 4-5,000 feet."

3:25

Like many other natural environments, the Agate Desert has been altered by weeds and other non-native species. But biologist Brent Helm says that within the vernal pools, the unusual life cycle has prevented many outsiders from taking hold.
"It's a very harsh system for species to colonize, so we don't have a lot of exotics that are getting into them."

3:46

Introduced plant species thrive on the mounds all around. But the pools themselves contain mostly native plants and animals, well-adapted and living together as they have for thousands of years.
"We are looking at communities of organisms and ecosystems that are fairly unique."

4:04

Michael says the pond environments provide great learning opportunities for his students. Though he admits that getting them interested in wildlife this small can be a challenge. "People look at them and they're not beautiful, they're not striking, from a distance -- until you really get in and start looking at them closely."

4:20

So back in his classroom, he's mounted a video camera to a microscope. He says once the class sees the tiny creatures on the big screen, the students are hooked.
"These are ostrocods; some people call them seed shrimp. They're a little crustacean." "These are copepods; this is another branch of the crustacea."
"Those clusters on the back are egg sacs, so those are the females. You notice that they're bright red. They actually incorporate pigments from some of the algae that they eat." "One of the things that's neat about these vernal pools, they're too short-lived for most predators, particularly fish, to live there. And so you develop these particularly interesting invertebrate assemblages that anywhere else, where there were fish or other vertebrate predators, you wouldn't see them." "These are flatworms, tubolarians. They're real common in the ponds, too." "Oh, look at that, daphnia. Actually these guys are all gals. They're all females. When they reproduce, they reproduce entirely through parthenogenesis, meaning they don't need to have sexual reproduction. They're essentially clones."

5:30

He has saved the star of the show for last.
"This is the sexy vernal pool invertebrate, a fairy shrimp, order anostrica." "And you can tell the male because he's got these really large modified second antennae, that he uses for clasping the female and also for battling with other males for access to females."

5:52

This is a federally listed threatened species, identified here in Oregon only a couple of days earlier. And it may push the subject of vernal pools into the public spotlight. "There's the female. Isn't she pretty?"

6:07

The fairy shrimp is already well-known, and controversial, in California's Central Valley where Brent lives. "Because it is a listed species, it has all the protections afforded to it. So you need to have a take permit to kill this or to fill a vernal pool in."

6:22

Some landowners and developers there have even sued to get the shrimp delisted, claiming it is more plentiful than once believed. Its discovery here in Oregon will fuel that debate. But unless its threatened status is reversed, the shrimp will surely change the way the Agate Desert lands are managed. "A lot of the land around here would probably have to be surveyed for the fairy shrimp if there's going to be any sort of development in the region." "Check this guy out. This is a dytiscid beetle larvae. They're the top predators in most of these systems. Fairy shrimp and other invertebrates probably fall prey to these predators quite a bit."

7:01

For Michael, the real issue is not whether individual vernal pool species are endangered. He says the entire ecosystems they live in are important and at risk. "You don't have to be a biologist to appreciate the diversity of life you find in those pools. And how interesting it is that those organisms can live and have evolved under those conditions."

7:24

And, of course, small animals are only half the story out here. "This one is a member of the renunculacae, called mousetail."

7:33

As you might expect of a botanist, Frank Lang studies the plants. "Here's another interesting vernal pool plant, this is coyote thistle, and it's in the same family as carrots."

7:46

It's now late April and the pools are starting to recede. The crustaceans have perhaps met their fate in the jaws of dytiscid beetles, but not before laying their eggs in the sediments to hatch out next year.
This is the part of the pool's cycle where the flowers take center stage. "One of the first ones that you see is this popcorn flower." "This is pillwort. They reproduce by means of spores instead of seeds."

8:14

These pools are true micro-habitats, home to a much different set of plants than the higher ground only a couple feet away. "This plant is very common. And what we'll do is walk over here to a vernal pool that has lomatium cookii in it. This is very rare. This is it; this is it for the world."

8:40

And this is a kind of meadowfoam, similar to that grown in the Willamette Valley for its high quality oil.
"These plants, the only place you find them are associated with these vernal pools. This particular subspecies, just right here on the Agate Desert."

8:54

It, too, could have some agricultural value. Because unlike the Willamette Valley type, which needs bees for pollination, this vernal pool type is self-pollinating. But Frank says that, like the other plants here, this one's real value lies beyond any commercial potential it may have. "You know, it's the product of millions of years of evolution. It occupies a niche in the ecosystem. It's interesting, you know; that's a reason to keep it." "It's pretty hard to make an argument that those organisms will ever be the cure of cancer or any of those kinds of things, but I think they are unique. And they are part of the evolutionary and ecological legacy of this area." "You know, it's an ideal industrial site, but in terms of biological and ecological values, it's irreplaceable. Once it's asphalted, that's the end of it. And there's not much of this habitat left."